


I'm Searching For Something That I Can't Reach

by TwiExMachina



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Crush at First Sight, Crushes, F/F, Femslash February, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-01
Updated: 2016-03-01
Packaged: 2018-05-24 01:59:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6137381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwiExMachina/pseuds/TwiExMachina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rio was kidnapped, saved, attempted suicide, was saved again, and fell in complete fascination with her rescuer in the same night.  She moved on, and went through the school year, never forgetting the motorcyclist that saved her that night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Searching For Something That I Can't Reach

**Author's Note:**

> I got so hyped when I watched DRRR because girls crushing on each other and rescue romance and my friend didn't break my heart and tell me that Rio was a minor character. >:
> 
> Title is from Ghost by Halsey

When Rio got home, she deleted every single email Nakura sent to her. She reread them, gagging at her saccharine trusting of Nakura and his honeyed words. They used to fill her with warmth. There's none of that now. 

Maybe it wasn't warmth to begin with. Maybe she just was so happy to talk to someone. She was happy that someone understood her.

Nakura's emails felt carefully constructed now, rehearsed. They were exactly what she needed to hear. Too perfect, now that she wasn’t stuck in the moment. And then there was the scene on the roof and lies upon lies and manipulation.

Deleting everything didn't give her any catharsis.

\---

Rio went to school the next day. She daydreamed about the figure in black, how it undid her bindings, how they weaved a helmet of shadows and confronted Rio as she stepped back in fear of those powers. How it felt to cling to another person.

At lunch, she overheard someone chat about how she read a book over the break about a man saving a girl from bandits and how they fell in love. She worked up the courage to put her hand on the girl's shoulder and ask what the book was called.

"Oh, are you interested in that? You always seemed so cool I was t sure if romance was your thing."

It wasn't. Her father's affair and her mother's refusal to hold him accountable dulled the images of love. But the motorcyclist who rescued her, their warmth, their confidence that life was worth living, she couldn't deny that. "I'm not, but the plot..."

Her eyes lit up. "Oh, the plot is so wonderful!" She leaned forward like she was sharing a secret. "You know, I don't much like shoujo manga. The boys are so cruel. They say hurtful things, and everyone just swoons. But when you start out being rescued, you know you're safe. Because so often, they recognize wrong was done and they know how to fix it."

Rio stared. Her heart thumped in her chest and she heard the braying of a horse.

\---

She ended up reading a lot of rescue romances. They didn't always fit, but she enjoyed the world, the brightness, that at the end they lived. She just imagined the girl had dyed brown pigtails and the boy was a figure in black.

\---

Rio joined the Dollars. She spent a lot of time on the forums that dealt with the Black Rider. She didn't post about her experience. It felt too personal. Not for her, for the Black Rider. They needed their distance, their privacy, and Rio wouldn't violate that.

She stared at the pictures and admired how their suit absorbed light. The night shots and they day shots looked the same when she was subject.

\---

Rio hasn't realized how she had broken off contact with her friends until she made new ones. Junior high was rough for Rio, school and puberty on top of the affair and Nakura's twistings. But she had friends again. She talked about books. They shopped together. At one point, Hikari asked her if she was interested in art.

"I hadn't thought about it before." Rio grinned. "Let's do it."

She like charcoal and graphite drawing the best, the swirl of darkness left in her wake.

\---

Rio was there when the Black Rider roared her—her, Rio knew her gender now, her—declarations and sped down the side of a building, shadows bursting like flames around her. Rio stared and ran to her, ran to where the brilliant figure fought. 

She didn't had a head, only a cloud of blackness. 

That didn't mean anything. As if that could take away from her magnificence. Her. Her. Her. It was wonderful to know who she was. She was a dangerous woman, but Rio knew how gentle she was. With the video of her attack constant over the internet, Rio was probably the only person who knew how good she was.

It was hard to concentrate in class. She sketched out the Black Rider's body, the lines rough, but they seemed to fit the shadows that were her. She pressed the flat of her pencil in the center of her body and spread it out. She pressed harder, darkening the marks.

Her pencil snapped. Her classmates stared. Rio didn't care. She took the shattered graphite and smeared it across the page in bold shadowy streaks. She picked apart her pencil, scattering the wood around her notebook and crushing the lead between her fingers. She thought about the shadows she wielded, how it sliced without leaving a mark.

"Miss…are you...are you alright?"

"Yes sir," Rio muttered, not looking up from her notebook. "I'm sorry for the disturbance."

She had made the shadows into a looping heart.

\---

Rio had heard through the Dollars that you could run into the Black Rider when you least expected it. Not as a passing glance, but her just on the street.

Rio never had seen her in daylight before.

But there she was.

She was talking to someone, but Rio could only stare at her. She was there. Rio could talk to her. Tell her what she had done for Rio. How happy she felt. How happy thinking of her felt. She could say so many things.

The Black Rider walked towards her bike. She would be leaving. Rio rushed towards her, faster than she had ever ran before, wanting to reach her. The Black Rider stopped walking and tilted her head at her. Her helmet. That was odd. But this was Ikebukuro. Odd was everywhere. She was just another brilliant part of Rio’s home. "My name's Rio!"

The Black Rider started.

"Sorry," Rio said, blushing. She wasn’t normally like this. "What's your name?"

She pulled out her phone.  
>Celty.

"Sorry," Rio apologized again.

Celty typed rapidly and showed Rio the screen.  
>No, no, it's fine.

"It's just…ever since I met you." Rio stopped. Celty had no reason to remember her. What for Rio was a lifechanging moment was just a night for Celty. "Sorry. You probably don't even remember me." Rio took a step back.

Celty shook her head and typed.  
>Of course I remember you. How have you been? You look happier.

Rio could've cried.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Feel free to bug me at [TwiExMachina](http://www.twiexmachina.tumblr.com) on tumblr!


End file.
